In the technology of ballot transaction processing, it is desirable to develop apparatus and methods for processing paper ballots, such as by optically scanning or optically reading those ballots, in a more efficient and reliable manner. The improvements described herein relate to technologies for processing ballots and in particular technologies for optically scanning ballots.
There are numerous voting technologies known that are directed to permitting votes to be cast and recorded efficiently while maintaining the secrecy of the ballot.
It is generally known that ballots can be optically scanned to assist in tabulation and aid in the assessment of voter intent. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,854,644 issued to Bolton et al. discloses that a voter's intent can be determined by making a digital image of a mark. The image of the mark is then subjected to a discrimination process that makes a determination as to whether the pixel values in the image correspond to a mark indicating a voter's intent to make a selection. The reference discloses that the determination is reached by comparing the pixel value of a bounded region to a control pixel value set.
Further, it is generally known to print certain identifying information on a ballot when the ballot is printed before an election. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,892,944 discloses providing on each ballot a voter registration number that can include a barcode, two-dimensional barcode, a prescribed font, optical character recognition characters, alphanumeric characters, non-alphanumeric characters and symbols. Further, this patent discloses that the voter registration number can include information such as the voter's state, county, precinct etc. in addition to a randomly generated number that is printed on the ballot prior to election.
Of paramount importance in an election process is the efficient verification and auditing of voting results. One of the obstacles associated with the verification is that there is usually a subjective determination made when determining the voter intent. For example, in the case of mechanical based systems that punch out a hole in a ballot, subjective determinations have had to be made in well-publicized cases to determine the voter intent with respect to partially attached chads. These subjective determinations lead to inconsistent results and have a negative impact on public perception of vote integrity. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a ballot processing system that objectively determines voter intent in a consistent and reliable manner and that provides a mechanism for auditing the results on a vote-by-vote basis.